now that we have finished the first section of the old testament called the 'torah', we focus on the second section called the 'prophets'. this is a rather long section making up of 2 sub-sections - the 'former prophets' and the 'latter prophets'. these names were so-given by the jews later in the middle ages to reflect the contents of the 2 sub-sections. the first sub-section is so called because they consist of books like joshua, judges, samuel and kings. these books are termed 'former prophets' because they are 'prophetic' in nature i.e. written by 'prophets'. joshua was written by joshua (considered to be a prophet), judges and samuel were written by samuel (a prophet-judge-king maker) and kings which was written by the prophet jeremiah. the books of samuel and kings were not yet split into 1 and 2 samuel and 1 and 2 kings as we have them today.

the second sub-section was termed 'latter prophets'. these books are strictly the prophetic books as we understand them, i.e. isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel and the twelve minor prophets. note that the book of daniel is not placed here but in the third section called the writings. we will talk about daniel when we reach the writings.